-- THE ARCHIVE --

AFGHANISTAN
Judicial CP - May 2010

The New York Times, 30 May 2010

Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes

By Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin

(extract)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The two Afghan girls had every reason to
expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a
checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys'
clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days
along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their
illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had
made it to relatively liberal Herat Province.

Instead, the police officer spotted them as girls, ignored
their pleas and promptly sent them back to their remote village
in Ghor Province. There they were publicly and viciously flogged
for daring to run away from their husbands.

Their tormentors, who videotaped the abuse, were not the
Taliban, but local mullahs and the former warlord, now a
pro-government figure who largely rules the district where the
girls live.

Neither girl flinched visibly at the beatings, and afterward
both walked away with their heads unbowed. Sympathizers of the
victims smuggled out two video recordings of the floggings to the
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which released
them on Saturday after unsuccessfully lobbying for government
action.

The ordeal of Afghanistan's child brides illustrates an
uncomfortable truth. What in most countries would be considered a
criminal offense is in many parts of Afghanistan a cultural norm,
one which the government has been either unable or unwilling to
challenge effectively.

According to a Unicef study, from 2000 to 2008, the brides in
43 percent of Afghan marriages were under 18. Although the Afghan
Constitution forbids the marriage of girls under the age of 16,
tribal customs often condone marriage once puberty is reached, or
even earlier.

Flogging is also illegal.

Click to enlarge

The case of Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, from the
village of Gardan-i-Top, in the Dulina district of Ghor Province,
central Afghanistan, was notable for the failure of the
authorities to do anything to protect the girls, despite
opportunities to do so.

Forced into a so-called marriage exchange, where each girl was
given to an elderly man in the other's family, Khadija and Basgol
later complained that their husbands beat them when they tried to
resist consummating the unions. Dressed as boys, they escaped and
got as far as western Herat Province, where their bus was stopped
at a checkpoint and they were arrested.

Although Herat has shelters for battered and runaway women and
girls, the police instead contacted the former warlord, Fazil
Ahad Khan, whom Human Rights Commission workers describe as the
self-appointed commander and morals enforcer in his district in
Ghor Province, and returned the girls to his custody.

After a kangaroo trial by Mr. Khan and local religious
leaders, according to the commission's report on the episode, the
girls were sentenced to 40 lashes each and flogged on Jan. 12.

In the video, the mullah, under Mr. Khan's approving eye,
administers the punishment with a leather strap, which he appears
to wield with as much force as possible, striking each girl in
turn on her legs and buttocks with a loud crack each time. Their
heavy red winter chadors are pulled over their heads so only
their skirts protect them from the blows.

The spectators are mostly armed men wearing camouflage
uniforms, and at least three of them openly videotape the
floggings. No women are present.

The mullah, whose name is not known, strikes the girls so hard
that at one point he appears to have hurt his wrist and hands the
strap to another man.

"Hold still," the mullah admonishes the victims, who
stand straight throughout. One of them can be seen in tears when
her face is briefly exposed to view, but they remain silent.

When the second girl is flogged, an elderly man fills in for
the mullah, but his blows appear less forceful and the mullah
soon takes the strap back.

The spectators count the lashes out loud but several times
seem to lose count and have to start over, or possibly they
cannot count very high.

"Good job, mullah sir," one of the men says as Mr.
Khan leads them in prayer afterward.

"I was shocked when I watched the video," said
Mohammed Munir Khashi, an investigator with the commission.
"I thought in the 21st century such a criminal incident
could not happen in our country. It's inhuman, anti-Islam and
illegal."

[...]

RELATED VIDEO CLIP

This clip from the New York Times website shows one of the floggings described in the above piece.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.